The chief instructor is Mr Bob Cooper. Born and educated in Western Australia, Bob has delivered these Outback Safety and Survival courses since 1990 and is considered the leading desert survival instructor in Australia.

Bob conducts survival courses for government agencies and private companies throughout Australia. He has instructed with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Rangers on desert survival courses over a number of years in the USA, and is a frequent guest speaker on ABC talkback radio. He has also featured in several major television documentaries. These include National Geographic America, BBC, Discovery Channel, The World Around Us and 60 Minutes.

Introducing our survival instructors

A team of experienced survival and bushcraft instructors support Bob, each with their own expertise in specific fields.

Bob Cooper

For over 30 years Bob has honed his survival skills by learning from many traditional cultures. His experiences include living for extended periods with Aboriginal people in our Western Desert, sharing bushcraft abilities with the Bushmen of the Kalahari in Botswana also with the Lakota Sioux Indians in Dakota and jungle time with the Orang Asli people in Malaysia.

His roles have included instructing the Special Forces Units, conducting survival courses throughout Australia, lecturing with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Service on survival in the Mexican Desert and delivering wilderness lessons in the UK.

Mike House

For as long as he can remember, Mike House has found the diversity and detail of the natural environment a source of wonder.Having grown up on a farm on Western Australia’s southern coast, his ongoing love for the outdoors is reflected in pastimes such as sea kayaking, rock climbing, caving and bushwalking.

Cameron Large

Growing up in a small country Qld town gave me plenty of opportunities to be outdoors and we spent most weekend’s bushwalking, fishing and camping. My father was a keen semi and precious stone collector so we spent weeks on end in remote locations searching for the perfect stone. This was a wonderful training ground from an early age to learn the art of being prepared and always having a backup plan.

Gordon Dedman

Gordon grew up in the small NSW country town of Moree where he spent lots of time camping, fishing and going for long walks in the bush, fostering an early passion for nature and bushcraft. “I remember spending hours out in the bush, building my own shelters etc, and just sitting there watching, listening and just revelling in the bush, I was particularly fascinated with the way in which Australian Aborigines could live off of the land”.

Introducing our courses

Wilderness Survival

Survival situations can not be anticipated, they just happen. Whether or not you survive such a situation largely depends on the decisions you make in the first few hours. Your decisions can be made easier if you have had some training in what is known as bush survival.

Outback Survival - Advanced

Bob Cooper’s Advanced Australian Survival Course offers you not only the knowledge of how to cope with just the minimal basic resources but also the opportunity to put those skills into practice. In as real as possible scenario, in a remote location in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia.

Victorian Wilderness Survival

Whenever we expose ourselves to the great outdoors, to adventure, the possibility for a survival scenario exists. Any one of a number of factors can conspire to change our carefully crafted plan into a potential tragedy.This course will give you the five essential priorities for survival, as well as insights into your personal survival psychology. The five priorities are relevant whether you are in South Australia, South Africa or Venezuela.

Tracking - NEW

This two day course is designed to be the tracking skills component requirement for a First Response – Search and Rescue Team members. Bob learnt his traditional tracking skills from Australian Aboriginal people, the Kalahari Bushman in Botswana and the Texas Parks and Wildlife service.